Conversion Optimization 101: Ad Continuity/Scent

It was Dr Ed Chi, a Xerox Palo Alto Researcher, as early as 2001, who indicated that humans track information in a similar fashion to the way animals follow a scent. According to an article on the study:

People… engage in what [Dr. Ed Chi] calls “hub-and-spoke” surfing: They begin at the center, and they follow a trail based on its information scent…. If the scent is sufficiently strong, the surfer will continue to go on that trail. But if the trail is weak, they go back to the hub. “People repeat this process until they’re satisfied,” Chi said.

After seeing this behavior in countless usability studies and seeing the impact of it in way too many tests to count, I can’t help but see marketers make mistakes with scent all the time.

This week’s Conversion Optimization 101 challenge:

Here I was on FaceBook with my iPad when I spotted this ad:

I decided to click through and landed on this page:

I love the simplicity of the landing page. However, there are things that could be done to improve this ad/landing page combination.

Bryan Eisenberg is coauthor of the Wall Street Journal, Amazon, BusinessWeek, and New York Times bestselling books "Call to Action," "Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?," and "Always Be Testing." Bryan is a professional marketing keynote speaker and has keynoted conferences globally such as SES, Shop.org, Direct Marketing Association, MarketingSherpa, Econsultancy, Webcom, SEM Konferansen Norway, the Canadian Marketing Association, and others. In 2010, Bryan was named a winner of the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation's Rising Stars Awards, which recognizes the most talented professionals 40 years of age or younger in the field of direct/interactive marketing. He is also cofounder and chairman emeritus of the Web Analytics Association. Bryan serves as an advisory board member of SES Conference & Expo, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, and several venture capital backed companies. He works with his coauthor and brother Jeffrey Eisenberg. You can find them at BryanEisenberg.com.

53 comments

The first thing that I see is that the color scheme could be improved. Colorwise, the red banner and the rich screenshot draw the attention of the user while the actual call to action appears on a flat, boring grey page. Additionally, they don’t take advantage of listing more than one call to action (perhaps having the paid subscription next to it). Lastly, they could have leveraged the space better to inform the visitor of concrete, emotional benefits – “You could have access to over %x% number of movies and tv shows including %highlighted movie of the week%”.

The ad focus on “one month free” value proposal and the landing page’s headline is about how cheap the service is. That could generate friction and bounce rate for lack of relevance between each marketing piece.

3) In occident we visually scan from left to right. Based on that, we can make the landing page more “readable” and makes the user scan the elements in the order we want.

Reposting – forgot to sign in on Twitter 😉
There are multiple things that should be optimized:
1. Mismatch of languages – The ad is in a different language than the landing page. However, why are you (Bryan) even being targeted with a non-English ad? (Have you been clicking around on foreign language ads)
2. Mix of languages within the ad – the visual is in English, the rest is non-English – need consistency in language
3. Offer in ad – notes “free trial” – the landing page says “1 month free trial” – again need consistency in offers
4. The image on the landing page should show an iPad, not a phone, if you were on your iPad
5. I’m not clear on why I should be signing up with Netflix – the benefits are not very clear, aside from getting a month free – why not quantify the choice (and languages) in shows and movies that Netflix offers (e.g. 50,000 movies)
6. The headline is very weak and disconnected from the ad – talks about $7.99 a month, whereas the ad focused on free trial – again, it doesn’t sell me on Netflix
7. Why is the “one month free” button on the far right hand side? Test location of calling out the offer.
8. The landing page looks very dark and gloomy. I would probably suggest testing different color schemes and images as well as moving the “Sign Up” box further up
9. The CTA could probably also use some testing.
10. They should probably set expectations on what comes next (after clicking the CTA) – does the visitor need to provide his credit card info or no credit card needed for free trial?
There many more of opportunities (basics!) to improve the relevancy between the ad and the landing page as well as the effectiveness of the landing page! Does Netflix have a conversion optimization expert on staff? Their marketing team should sign up for your Market Motive class. Needless to say, the targeting criteria for the ad also need to be re-evaluated.

OK, just quickly looking at the ad and landing page I would say, that I see several issues that could be improved, especially in relation to the copy and location of elements.

Ad suggested improvements

1) Language: Clearly the mixed-up in languages is a problem. If this is an ad for the Spanish Market as I assume it is (there is a lot of buzz about Netflix launching in the Spanish market), the ad should be all in Spanish, including the image.
2) Composition, copy and design of ad image: The composition of the ad image is also arguable. I personally believe that the block separation between “Netflix Free trial” and “Click here” is a bit off. My hypothesis is that it would be more adequate to have only “Netflix” in red (more in sync with the landing page) in a single block cell and then underneath the black block cell with the call to action in Spanish. The copy “Click here” does not seem to me persuasive enough, I would go more for something like “Get your free trial now” (¡Consigue un mes gratis ya!). But again testing is in order here with different options of copy, colour schemes, image sizes, etc..
– Colour scheme: Not convinced by the choice of colours for the ad. However red is an intrinsic part of netflix corporate image but I would definitely suggest a quick test with several versions of the ad with a different color scheme, especially for the call to action. Testing, testing,testing 😉
Copy: I miss in the text some sense of urgency for the offer. “antes de que la oferta termine” is very bland. I would give a date or a time range “Get a free month of trial if you register before XX/XX”. (“Consigue un mes de prueba gratuito si te registras antes del XX/XX”). Also no indication of what netflix is. I have no idea on the limitation of words for this ad but some information on what you get is necessary. “Un mes de prueba gratuito para ver tus series favoritas con Netflix si te registras antes del XX”

Landing page suggested improvements

In general I agree that the simple page is good.
1) Again the language issue. Same as for ad, it should be in Spanish.
2) Confusing message: Is it a free trial or a month free? Not quite the same and that can lead the user to have doubts and not register.
3) Not convinced of the position of the “one month free” yellow image. I believe a more centered position will be better ( Inside the picture below the text “watch…” or on top of palm of the hand. Again testing needed.
4) Some users may need some clarification in relation to the email and password registration. It could be confusing for the user that might believe that he already needs to have an email/password. Maybe just a short sentence like “Quickly register with your email and your chosen password”.

It’s all about A/B testing. When you test, take a look at the conversion and click through rates of your links. In many cases this should be based on intuition. Does this button seems out of place or confusing? If so, it probably is. By asking for website feedback from friends, colleagues or even your customers you can speed up the process drastically.

Of course, providing great support should be done in tandem: customer experience is something that keeps customers coming back.

Bryan Eisenberg

Jeffrey Eisenberg

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